


Saviour of the Waking World

by vinnie2757



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-05
Updated: 2011-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-26 23:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinnie2757/pseuds/vinnie2757
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Your name, if any bothered to ask for it, is Dave Strider. But these days, you’re just known as the Prince."</p><p>For a lifetime, a darkness has inhabited the world of Skaia, and Dave Strider has been fighting to keep it at bay. But as much as he might fight, the battle is not in his favour. After rescuing the heirs to the Prospit throne, he finds a companion in the Princess that will lead him across the world in the search for the temple of the Frog King, the one God that might be able to destroy the horrorterrors once and for all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saviour of the Waking World

Derse is a cold land, full of shadows and snowstorms, enough that a man caught unprepared could freeze to death in less than twenty-four hours. Spiralling streets trap as much body heat as possible, and torches line every wall, glowing purple with power most Dersites don’t fully understand. You understand though, and you ignore it, hidden in the shadows even your sister’s power cannot reach.

You were born defected from the dark hair and dark skin of your kinsmen, pale in hair and paler still in skin, more befitting the sunshine state of Prospit than the obsidian towers of Derse’s palace. Considered a bad omen the moment you opened your eyes, your mother could not bear to put you to the crows. She did not, however, prevent them from entering your nursery whilst you slept in your cradle, from watching over you and swaddling you in their feathers.

Raised more by the birds nesting in your little used bed than by the court-appointed nannies, you took to the streets as soon as you were old enough know understand what a street was, and learnt more there than you could have ever learnt under your sister’s gleaming marble eyes. You learnt how to handle a blade from the blacksmith in the far reaches of the trading district, and you learnt how to use the overly fanciful architecture to your advantage from the thieves. You learnt how to extort and murder from your mother’s Agents, and you learnt how to hide yourself in plain sight from a man you would come to know as your brother.

Whilst in the streets, you saw many things; you saw corruption and decay and hatred so thick you could survive on it and nothing else. You saw pain and suffering and the cold, cruel calculation of a monarch preparing for war. As you grew older, as you continued to ignore your sister’s guiding hand and your mother’s watchful eye, as you took to the rooftops and delving your hands into the pockets of strangers you were born to lead not deceive, you came to understood that the corruption was something not in your nature.

You were not a leader of Derse. You did not belong.

Eventually, you fled the nest, as it were, taking as little as necessary, and though a search was put out in the first weeks of your disappearance, it was a perfunctory thing performed by the same Agents that had been instrumental in your disappearance, supplying you with a variety of weaponry, including a freshly forged sword, perfectly balanced to your hand and a blade longer than your leg. The cold of the plains snaps it in half two days later. The hunt is called off after only five days, and you are pronounced dead to the snow. It suits you just fine; your sister can have the throne all she likes.

Travelling suits you. You build up a reputation in a matter of weeks, doing whatever you have to do in order to get food and maybe a bed for the night. Word passes between the towns and cities, and you become more known for the sketch you drew of a little girl to cheer her up after her pet cat’s passing than you are your skill with a blade. You stare at your hands at the end of a day in the city, at the charcoal under your nails and in the crease of your fingers, and realise that you’ve drawn more pictures than you have slain murderous creatures of the dark.

You don’t mind, really. You don’t mind a lot of things any more.

You put on your weight in muscle, grow the last few inches Derse had denied you, and you find yourself stitching up battle wounds on a regular enough basis that you find it hard to remember the circumstances of each. You take on as much poison of the monsters as your mother bled into the apple juice your sister always put out for you, and you remain unaffected for it. Your voice, when you speak, has lost all trace of its accent, but soon you stop speaking altogether, the act completely unnecessary to getting the job done. Your reputation speaks enough for you anyway.

Your name, if any bothered to ask for it, is Dave Strider. But these days, you’re just known as the Prince.

~x~

The ruins are musty, the air thick and warm with centuries of flora and fauna, and the skeletons of mice and birds have crunched under your boots since you first used your brother as a boost over the rubble-blocked doorways. They spiral for what feels like miles, with ceilings a hundred feet high and catacombs a thousand feet long. The architecture, in itself, is a marvel, the stonework immaculate even after all these years, and you can see the worn faces of statues lining the walls around you in genial benevolence, arms open and robes worn, the ruler you long to be.

You get it from your grandfather, a man who had sacrificed the throne for the chance to explore and understand, and your father has acknowledged that, provided you with guards and training enough that you could hold your own against the native fauna dedicated to goring you with horns longer than you were tall. For the most part, you slip the guards and drag your brother with you, his protection the best you could ever hope to have.

There are broken pillars and flag posts protruding from the walls in the throne room, a moss climbing frame and a vine swing, your own personal playground. You hook your bow over your chest, and take a running leap at the nearest pillar. Behind you, your brother curses, and jogs after you, but you’re already climbing, moving fast enough to be fluid, light enough not to jostle the unstable architecture. You get to the top of the pillar and pause, balanced on your toes.

‘Which way should I go?’ you ask, skimming your gaze across the tattered remains of flags of kingdoms long since dissolved, and finding a target. ‘I want to get over there, to the statue of the king with the skull helmet.’

Below you, you can hear your brother moving around, picking his way over the rubble, as unsuited for adventure as you are an opera, and eventually he says, ‘head to your left, there’s another pillar, and then there are three of those sticky-out flag things you can swing from.’

‘Okay!’

And you jump from a crouch straight to your left.

You brother calls you a variety of interesting names, some of which are so foreign sounding you know exactly where he’s picked them up from, and you barely make the landing, but you’re strong enough to stay on the pillar. A few chunks give way beneath your feet and clatter to the ground.

‘I’m going to murder you when you get down here.’

‘No way!’ you call back, and shift your balance to catch the pole. ‘I’m going out the window!’

You make the jump easily, grip going with the swing of your body, and you curl yourself into a pike, swinging up around the pole until you come to a natural rest. You hang there for a moment, gauging the distance, and then you arch your back, swing once, twice, thrice, build up enough momentum to take the next three jumps in one easy movement.

‘For Chrissake!’ your brother exclaims when you fumble the last and hang by one hand. Gritting your teeth, you get both hands on and haul yourself onto the steel. It wobbles a little in its fixture, but it holds, and you shimmy over to grab onto the wall. ‘What are you even going for?’

‘Just a look!’ you reply, and shuffle across to the next wall. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes.’

‘Oh, don’t rush on my account. We’ve only been here for five hours and gone through this same process in every room with something you can climb.’

‘Climbing’s fun,’ you dismiss, and jump onto a pillar. ‘You should try it sometime. I would never have pegged you for the ground-bound sort! It’s so _boring_!’

‘I can fly,’ he reminds you. ‘Why do I have to climb?’

‘Because I’m stronger than you?’ you counter. ‘Why am I stronger than you? Because I use my muscles, you use your Breath. And I repeat! _Boring!'_

You do put a little speed into your movements, though, determined not to annoy him more than you have, because you know this disquiets him, you’ve already broken a hundred bones over the years; your right knee gives you trouble sometimes, having dislocated it a dozen times and shattered the femur at least twice. Once you get to your target, you hook yourself over one of the king’s outstretched arms, weight on the alcove’s framework than on the stone limb, and you touch his face reverently. The placard is written in Old Prospitian, and you can barely make out the name _English_ in those foreign letters.

‘He must have been a good man,’ you mumble to yourself. ‘Are you proud of us? Of what we’ve done with your kingdom?’

You linger there for a few minutes, mind buzzing with thoughts of what history you could find about this king of old, and below you, your brother paces, chuntering to himself and to the salamander consort he has not been able to shake since his early teen years. You feel the stone beneath you shift, and then the salamander is screaming, and your brother is yelling at your to move, get to the ground, hurry!

The stone shifts some more, darkness curls in your peripheral, and then your support is abruptly taken from beneath you.

You are Jade Harley, Princess of Prospit, and you are falling eighty feet to the cold stone floor.

~X~

You feel the ground beneath you tremble before you see it. The darkness has spread even as far as the edges of Prospit, and that kind of worries you. You wouldn’t admit it when questioned, but it does. If even the light kingdom is being tarnished, there is something dangerous and powerful at work, and you don’t know how long you can keep doing this. Your arm is broken, and your head pounds. You are dehydrated and tired beyond words, but as long as there is darkness, you cannot rest for too long.

The darkness is centred on the old ruins of a palace of some sort, a structure of stone and moss, and you can almost feel the intent behind it.

But who would be stupid enough to go desecrating ruins when there is something as dangerous as the darkness waiting for something living to latch onto?

You screw your eyes shut behind the protective shield of your desert goggles for a moment, long enough that the pain behind them abates enough that you can stand straight without wobbling, and you set off to ruins, muscles aching, chest heavy.

It takes you only moments to pick through the rubble, skirting the traps and taking the darkness creeping on the floor at leaps you wouldn’t be able to make if you weren’t trained for it, and kill three imps before they’ve even formed. The basilisk is a little harder, but you get away with a few grazes.

You follow the darkness through to what must be the main hall. There is a young man in there, not too far from your own age, a hammer in his hands and a strange yellow creature clinging to his trouser leg. You suppose it must be a native creature of Prospit, but it’s hard to care.

He’s shouting at something, and you follow his gaze to feel your stomach plummet to somewhere around your knees.

She must be his sister, too alike in hair and skin at utter idiocy. You have to give her credit, she got up there.

Before you’ve even though about it, you’re in the air, propelling yourself upwards, using the structures as springboards, and you take a dive for her, your broken arm hooking around a pole, the other grabbing her wrist. You think you might have dislocated her shoulder at the sudden jolt, but other than a shocked expletive, she gives no indication of pain. Hoisting her upwards, she takes the initiative and swings herself onto the pole.

‘Stay away from the walls and floor,’ you tell her, and propel yourself back towards the floor, sword in hand.

‘John!’ she yells, and you nearly fumble a leap to a pillar at the power in her voice. ‘Breathe! Get off the ground!’

‘What?’ he yells back, but does as asked, apparently, and you find yourself pausing in mid-air to realise belatedly that you are looking at the heirs of Prospit.

But of course you’re looking at the heirs of Prospit. Who else would be desecrating ruins whilst there’s danger? You hadn’t really held out much hope for their mental faculties, but you had rather hoped that they would have more common sense.

Once back on the ground, you shift your grip on the blade in your hand, half-bladekind throbbing in your fingers, and you plant your feet, ready to fight to the death for more strangers.

The imps come first, as usual. They’re shale imps this time, which you should have suspected; they’ve been becoming more common the further into Prospit you travel, though you’d give an arm and a leg to know why they look like harlequins. They’re easy enough to disperse, and eventually, John cottons on, and flattens a few with his hammer, which is nice of him.

The ogre, however, comes as a surprise. It’s been a long while since you saw one, and you aren’t prepared for how ridiculous it looks.

It flattens you against the wall with one oil-black hand, and for a second, you struggle to free yourself. Then you are abruptly dropped and covered in the monster’s brains. A startled look up reveals the Princess perched atop a pillar, lowering her bow with a victorious grin on her face.

Cool, you can work with that.

It takes a while, but eventually, you beat the darkness back enough that you’ve got a clear path out. John grabs his sister, and you get out of there, hopping across the air until you’re clear of the destruction.

The ruins collapse in on themselves as the darkness takes hold and slinks back to the Furthest Ring.

‘Whoa,’ John says as he sets Jade down and lifts the salamander from his hood. You must be more exhausted than you realised, if you hadn’t noticed that. ‘That was awesome.’

His eyes are a startling shade of blue, and they look straight at you, not even blinking against the black lenses of your goggles, against the dirt and blood caked onto your skin like it’s always been there, at how suspicious and out of place you look in your desert clothes compared to their softer plains wear. He looks so young, so guileless, and you kind of pity Prospit if they have to have him as a ruler. Though his expression is genial and awed, there is a hard suspicion behind his eyes.

Good.

You say nothing, so his sister takes up the conversation.

‘I’ve never seen someone fight like that,’ she says. ‘There aren’t many places that teach half-bladekind any more, it’s just not viable as a strife specibus. I think Derse is the only place that still does it.’

‘I taught it to myself,’ you tell her. ‘My sword broke in the middle of nowhere, and I had no way of repairing it. It was learn half-bladekind or die.’

‘Oh,’ she says, and frowns a little. Her face is open and honest, her eyes so green as to be lime, and they look just as tired as yours feel. ‘I suppose that makes sense.’

You turn to look back at the ruins, and wonder why they were there. You’ve heard about Jade’s propensity for exploration, of course, any conversation about the royal family will invariably mention it, but you would have thought their father would have kept them in the palace once word of the darkness had spread.

But then, maybe they didn’t know.

‘Oh!’ John exclaims, and he’s got pretty big incisors for his mouth. ‘You’re the Prince, aren’t you? That travelling warrior who draws?’

You shoot him a look, not that he sees it, and shrug. ‘I do what I have to do. Stay away from the darkness, it will strip your flesh from your bones if it touches you, and fill your dreams with horrorterrors if it doesn’t.’

You manage to take three steps away before Jade calls out, ‘Wait!’

Obligingly, you pause, and look back at her. A lock of pure black hair has fallen over her face, and her shoulder is definitely dislocated.

‘You saved my life,’ she says. ‘And you look like you could do with a rest. Come back with us to the Palace. Just stay the night to rest, and you can be on your way in the morning. You’ll be safe there, and you can resupply before moving on.’

‘Why are you offering me sanctuary?’ you ask. ‘If you know who I am, you know where I’m from.’

She rubs at the back of her neck and grins sheepishly. ‘The myths don’t really say,’ she explains. ‘They just say you blend perfectly with whatever society you’re a part of. You just came from the deserts of Haze, right?’

You nod. ‘The sand is a bit of a giveaway, no prizes for you.’

She makes a pitiful noise. ‘What a shame,’ she coos, and then adds, ‘I’m right, though.’ You nod. ‘Well, then, you must be exhausted! I’m not allowed to leave the kingdom unless under palace guard, so I’ve never been to Haze, but from what I’ve heard, it’s a pretty harsh place.’

‘Full of crabs,’ you agree. ‘And short people with bad tempers.’

John goes a little red about the ears, and you watch him try not to fidget. Really, the boy’s like an open book despite his mangrit, and you almost want to tease him, even though you have no idea when he snuck into Haze or who he met there. Given time, you could easily find out.

‘So? Are you coming or what?’

You look at her with her dislocated shoulder and her grazed knees, and you wonder how she hasn’t gotten herself killed yet. She watches you back, cool and composed, smiling airily, and after a moment, you sigh through your nose, and nod.

Jade cheers, and raises her good arm. ‘Awesome! Let’s go, gang!’

You turn pointedly to John, who shrugs and hoists the salamander into his arms. It crawls over his shoulders and nestles back into his hood. He’ll choke eventually, you suppose, but let him allow it. He follows after Jade, and you lope after them, your stride longer.

‘Oh, by the way,’ Jade starts after you’ve walked for perhaps thirty seconds. ‘Do you think you could pop my shoulder back in before we get home? I don’t think Dad would take it too well.’

~X~

Castle Prospit was everything Derse was not. Prospitian gold to Dersite lavender, it was a sprawling metropolis of a city, and the palace was much the same, decorated with ancient tapestries and the japery of harlequins and clowns. It was home to several hundred people, with thousands more in the surrounding city. They were, on the whole, pale creatures of milky skin and spun gold for hair, though the royal family was dark-haired and caramel-skinned, Dersites on the throne of Prospit whilst Prospitians ruled Derse.

Part of you thinks that that was why your mother was planning war, to take the throne she should be ruling. Part of you wonders why you did not sit in on the lessons of your kingdom’s history. You may have come to understand how this happened.

The rest of you fails to care.

There is no fanfare when your party arrives in the palace grounds; only the gate’s guards looking a little surprised, a lot relieved, and verging on angry.

‘Who’s this?’ one asks.

‘A good man,’ Jade replies, turning her nose up.

John puts the salamander down again, and chimes in with, ‘He is our honoured guest, don’t be fucknuts about it.’

‘John, that’s not even the plural,’ Jade admonishes.

‘Well, what is the plural?’ he counters, and she makes a rude gesture.

The look of long-suffering tedium on the guards’ faces suggests that this kind of exchange is more common than you first assumed.

Prospit is doomed if either of these two take the throne.

‘Hey!’ Jade calls, and suddenly she’s half way down the path. ‘Come on, Prince!’

‘Prince?’ one of the guards asks. ‘As in the Prince?’

You don’t grace them with a response, heading to where Jade is waiting, rubbing at her relocated shoulder. You swat her hand, and she smacks yours back, grinning.

‘This is so cool,’ she says. ‘We’ve never really had anyone come to stay before, even just for the night.’

‘The King’ll be cool with it, right?’ you check. ‘I mean, I’m not screwing with your numbers or anything, right? Not making things awkward?’

‘Nah,’ she replies. You have no idea where John is. ‘He’s cool. He’ll probably give you the Talk, but he’d rather tell you about pranks than try to kill you.’

That makes you feel so much better.

The king of Prospit reeks of Dad, and there’s not much else you can say to describe him. He is what every Dad looks like to a child, even down to the dorky horn-rimmed spectacles. Jade pulls you through a hundred corridors before you reach the kitchen, where you find him in his shirt sleeves, baking.

Baking of all things.

You mother would never have been caught dead in the kitchen, preferring to drink in her observatory than anything. Is this what a real ruler is, you wonder. Is this man what people really desire in their King? Is this the kind of ruler you could have become, or would you have been warped by the grimdark smile of your sister as she bled out upon the checkerboard floor of the throne room, eyes alight with thunder?

‘Dad?’ Jade starts, and he turns to look at her.

‘Oh,’ he says, and frowns a little. ‘You’ve been exploring again, haven’t you?’ His eyes flick to you. ‘And who’s this young man?’

‘Dad, this is the Prince! He saved my life!’

The King looks at you with an unreadable expression, and you have to purse your lips to stop yourself making a stupid face.

‘I see. And what exactly were you doing that required your rescue?’

‘We were in the ruins – John and I, I mean – on the plains, the old palace? With the statues in the main hall? And then this weird oil slick darkness came and I was falling, but the Prince caught me and fought them off and was just awesome. That’s all there is to say.’

You sigh a little. Dear lord the girl has no clue what nearly happened to her.

The King continues to look at you, and you feel your shoulders tense. Your broken arm throbs, bones grating and muscles tight. Your eyes are burning with the effort of keeping them open.

‘I see. You have been fighting the horrorterrors from the Furthest Ring for some time, have you not?’

‘A few years,’ you shrug. ‘They’re getting stronger.’

‘I feared as much. Jade, if you would take Mr Prince to the nursery so that the physician can set his arm before it sets like that, and then to the bathhouse. I’ll let the cooks know that we have a revered guest joining us.’

You are about to follow Jade when he calls for you to wait. ‘I have no problem with you spending a recuperation period here. You have been doing good things for the kingdoms of Skaia, and you never ask anything in return. Allow me to outfit you before you return to your duties. Half-bladekind is simply not practical for fighting the darkness.’

There is something in his voice, recognition of something you can’t identify, but his face remains blank.

‘How do you know so much?’ you ask. ‘Jade hasn’t got a clue, and I can’t say John is much better.’

He smiles in an empty sort of way, his eyes still unreadable, and his facial muscles barely registering, as though it’s been painted on by a child.

‘I have seen the darkness for myself, and I know how it infects this world,’ he says, and turns back to his baking. His shoulders hunch beneath his robes. ‘I wouldn’t see my children terrified to live because of it.’

‘Prince?’ Jade’s voice comes from behind you, and you turn to see her peering around the doorway. ‘Is everything alright?’

‘Peachy,’ you say, and bid your farewells to the king before following her.

~X~

You can’t help yourself. You don’t think he’s noticed you’re still here, but if he has, he says nothing and gives no indication of it. His broken arm has been sent and splinted, and he struggles a little, to strip the last of his clothes off, but he manages in that determined, methodical way he has. He is scarred in so many places you wonder how long he has been fighting; lines run down his back, twist with the curve of his bones and muscles, and he is pale, far paler than you thought a man who spent at least ninety per cent of his time out of doors would be.

But his white skin is not what throws you. It’s the white-gold of his hair. You had not expected his hair to be so pale, and you wonder if he is a Prospitian by birth, but then you dismiss the notion for the fancy that it is.

His body is long and lean, muscles taut with over-worked caution, picked out in relief by sand and blood caked to his skin. You are used to John’s baby-soft, willowy form and your guards’ stocky frames; the raw power of a lifetime of hard graft is something with which you are unfamiliar. You watch him watch himself in the water’s reflection, lip curled with what you suppose must be disgust, and you wonder what he sees behind those goggles, and you think nothing of him having left them on. You cannot imagine seeing him without them.

He smiles suddenly, and stretches.

‘Like what you see?’ he calls, and turns his head to look in your direction.

You scream a little, a squeak of shock, and he laughs.

‘Don’t worry, Princess,’ he says, and climbs into the water, back to you at all times. ‘Just another lady mackin’ on me, doesn’t worry me. Your father might have something to say about that, though.’

‘I hardly think he’d care. I’m old enough to care for myself.’

‘I can see that,’ he says, and sighs contentedly. ‘Nothing like it.’ He is silent for a moment, and then says, ‘Lingering in doorways is rude, you’re welcome to come in. I’m sure I’ve not got anything you haven’t seen before.’

You don’t tell him that you have never seen a grown man naked, and slip through the doorway, keeping the line of the bath between you.

‘Wow,’ he says, and reclines against the lip of the tub, careful to keep his splint out of the water. ‘I didn’t actually expect you to come in.’

‘I don’t back down from a challenge,’ you tell him.

Though you can’t see them, you can feel his eyes rake over you. You haven’t yet changed out of your travelling clothes, and you are vaguely aware that you never tightened the laces on your blouse after removing it for the physician to strap your injured shoulder. You are dusty and grazed and still a little sweaty from the battle. Last you saw of your face, it was pale and your eyes purple with exhaustion. You know you are not much of an attractive sight.

And yet, the way he tilts his head and smiles. He can’t take his eyes of you, and you aren’t sure how to feel about that.

‘What were you doing in the ruins?’ the Prince asks, and you turn your eyes to him.

‘What do you mean, what was I doing in the ruins? Am I not allowed to explore?’

‘Chill out, Princess,’ he says, and waves his broken arm at you. ‘I was only curious.’

‘I like exploring,’ you tell him, and turn staunchly away. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

The water ripples as he shifts his weight. He curses, and you glance back. ‘I think I bruised my ass saving yours.’

You scoff and dismiss him with a wave of your own hand. ‘I would have survived the fall.’

‘You’d have broken your neck.’

‘People have survived broken necks before.’

‘Not for long. In ninety per cent of the cases I’ve seen, the cripple will be killed for their own good. I only know one person with a serious injury that survived longer than a year.’

He looks a little smug, and you kind of want to hit him. He thinks he’s so clever, and maybe he is, he’s much more travelled than you are.

He turns his face away and looks up at the open skies through the bay window. For a while you remain silent, studying his profile and trying to remember what you’ve been taught about personality from it. You know that full lips are a sign of a caring personality, and you know that an unshaven chin indicates rashness and selfishness, but you hardly think you can read anything into it given that he’s been on the road for who knows how long. You don’t know what to make of his square, sharp jaw, and you can’t see his eyes, brow or the bridge of his nose over the encompassing leather frame of his goggles. It seems to be a long nose, what of it you can see, broken and badly set. You wonder if he’d mind you breaking it again.

You wonder if he snores.

It takes you five minutes to realise that he’s asleep, and you sit there for five minutes more, just watching him rest.

‘Thank you,’ you whisper. ‘For saving my life.’

You pull a towel from the rail and set it on the chair you had been perched on, and quietly leave him in peace.

John finds you as you head towards the main hall, Casey still following him around. He’s holding her hand – paw – fin – front limb, and his ridiculously long stride is slowed enough for her tiny one to match. Normally, he just carries her around, so you suppose she must have been getting antsy. Still, it’s better than being in his sylladex, which is where he usually keeps her.

‘Hey,’ he greets, and Casey blows you a bubble that pops on his trouser leg. ‘Where’s the Prince?’

‘In the bath.’ Casey holds her arms out, eyes wide up at you, and you obligingly pick her up. ‘He was asleep when I left him.’

‘You were in the room with him?’ John asks, incredulous. ‘What were you even doing in there?’

You shrug. ‘He invited me in. It’s not like he’s got anything I haven’t seen before.’

John stares at you, and looks a little red at the ears. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘I never knew.’

‘What? No!’ you deny. ‘No, John, I haven’t – augh, no! Just. No.’

He stares at you. You lower your bright-red face until it’s resting on the top of Casey’s head. She merrily blows another bubble. Some of it gets in your hair. It needs a good scrub anyway.

‘So.’ He draws the word out, and shuffles on his feet. ‘You haven’t – with the Prince?’

You can’t help but snort with laughter, choking on your spit.

‘Good Lord, John!’ you exclaim. ‘No! Never, not in a million years! Can we stop talking about this now?’

He looks more than a little relieved. ‘Yeah, of course. Sure. So, uh, what do you make of it? What happened in the ruins I mean?’

You shake your head. ‘I don’t know. I mean, the stories say this is what he does, right? He appears out of nowhere, deals with the darkness, and disappears again. He’s not any different to how I thought he’d be. A little bigger, maybe, but he looks and acts about the same. But as for the darkness itself, I really don’t know! I never would have thought it would reach this far.’

The Prince’s voice comes from behind you so suddenly you almost drop the salamander in your arms, cursing.

‘The darkness will come wherever there is life. I’ve done everything I can to keep it at bay, but it’s already infected the other kingdoms, and it was only a matter of time before it reached Prospit. If I’m right and it’s Dersite in origin, it was a long time coming.’

John is frowning. ‘But why would Derse want to attack us? We’ve never said a bad word about them!’

The Prince smirks. ‘It’s not the point, Prince,’ he replies. ‘Derse will always attack Prospit because it is in the nature of the darkness to destroy the light. Night destroys the day, right?’

‘No, it’s the progression of time,’ John corrects. ‘One cannot exist without the other.’

‘I thought it was common knowledge that Derse has periods of time where it is daylight all day every day,’ the Prince tells him with a note of boredom on his words. You wonder what he’s thinking about. ‘But I suppose not. One can exist without the other, and the light nearly always wins that fight. But if it comes down to it, if one had to destroy the other for the rest of time, the darkness would win every time. The creatures that attacked you today are sent from the Furthest Ring, hell bent on making everyone’s lives a misery.’ He laughs bitterly. ‘Derse wants Prospit’s throne in order to take the crown as ruler of Skaia.’

You stand in silence, gaping at him. He looked so much more impressive when he was travel-weary. Clean, he was a pale ghost of a boy, out of his depth and trying to big himself up. If you didn’t know better, you’d say he was younger than you. He looks out of place in his desert-wear, a dark shadow on your peripheral. His scarf is around his head again, hiding his hair, and you almost miss the gold catching on the late afternoon sunlight. Almost.

‘So you’re fighting it?’ John asks whilst you were still gaping. ‘You’re stopping the darkness?’

‘I’m keeping it at bay,’ the Prince replies. ‘I can’t stop it completely, because I don’t know how. There aren’t manuals for this kind of thing.’

‘Nanna would know,’ John sighs. ‘Nanna knew everything.’

The Prince says nothing, so you expand with, ‘There was an accident when we were very young and she died. She was one of the wisest people in the kingdom.’

‘I see.’

Things have suddenly gotten awkward, the three of you shuffling on your feet and not looking at each other, and you have no idea how to diffuse the situation.

You have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.

You understand nothing.

So you do what you always do; ignore it, and hope for the best.

‘Dad said he was going to re-equip you, right?’ you ask. When the Prince nods, you grin, hand Casey back to John, and grab your warrior’s wrist. ‘Well come on, then! I’ll show you the armoury! We’ve got some sweet blades.’

It’s quiet enough that you almost miss it, but he tosses a, ‘I’ll bet you have,’ your way.

You wave goodbye to your brother and turn a sharp right, dragging the Prince by his unbroken arm.

~X~

The King gives you a blade called the Caldescratch. He tells you that it was a reforge of a legendary sword used by the guardian of Prospit’s Skull King. He tells you that after it was broken saving his life, it was set to one side and never used again, yet at some point in the Skull King’s reign, he had it reforged, presumably after his guardian’s death, turning it into the Caldescratch.

Why it got a rename, you have no idea.

The sword fits well into your palm, fitting the grooves of your glove, and weighting your arm in all the right places. You practice for only a few minutes before knowing that it is the perfect sword for you.

You have to ask though, why it hasn’t been used – why none of the blades in the armoury are used.

The King shrugs. ‘No one in our family fights with blades. John uses hammerkind, and Jade is a expert in bowkind. I myself prefer not to fight, but my base specibus is fistkind.’

That explained that, then.

You are given other articles of weaponry as well; more throwing knives, to replace the ones you lost in Haze, and even a few small explosives. You aren’t sure why they have explosives in there, but whatever.

The King also gives you a new set of clothes, more suited to Prospit’s plains than the deserts you just came from. You tell him that you’ve got several changes of clothes, ready for whatever weather you are presented with, but he won’t have it, and practically dresses you himself.

He also tries to force you into eating cake, but John comes to your defence at that point and tells him he’s going far too far with the benevlonce and he needs to pack it in. He pretends to sulk, but you find four cakes and a pie in the food captchacard of your inventory when you look later, and you have to ask how lulled you’ve been by the spread that he managed to get it off you in the first place.

But that was hours ago, and now the sun has set. You are in the guest room Jade led you to, and you have a lovely view of the city, its lights not reaching as high as you thought they might, giving you a clear view of the stars and the fires of Haze in the distance. You are perched on the intricate railing of the balcony looking up at the constelations, tracing scales and bulls and goats with your eyes.

You can’t stay, not even for the night. You hate that this is way you’ve become, that you can’t even accept thanks from people whose lives you’ve saved. You despise that you exist on the fringes of the world, a shadow of the man you could be, and you know that you can be better than this, than taking and fleeing in the dead of night. You know that the King means well, that he knows you are fighting to save Skaia’s life and wants you to be in the best shape for it, but the darkness will not wait.

Your inventory waits for you on your bed, a deck of cards bound with leather and red ribbons, a gift from a blind girl in Flow that helped you escape capture. You think she might know who you are, but she has, to your knowledge, said nothing of it. You owe her cherry ice.

From your perch, you can see the windows of other occupiers in the castle, and most of the lights are off. You suppose you’ll wait until the last are snuffed before you make for the ground. The drop isn’t that great, and you’ve been trained well.

After perhaps another half an hour, the last light clicks off, and you swing your legs back over the railing to get your deck. But as you turn, movement catches your eye, and you’re back to perching on the railing like a crow about to take flight.

As you watch, a window opens and a small figure climbs into the frame. Shrouded in a cloak, you can’t see anything to define it as one or the other, but you can make a few guesses when it raises a bow and fires an arrow into a tree not ten feet away. There is a rope attached to the arrow, and you know exactly what they’re planning. You leap back into your room, grab your deck, and take a running leap off the balcony.

You’re determined to hit the ground first to stop her, and barely manage to avoid breaking your other arm when you hit the ground at a roll.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ you demand of the airborne figure sliding down the rope.

Jade laughs. ‘I knew you were going to sneak out! I knew it!’

You heave a sigh of exasperation, and fold your arms, waiting for her to reach the ground. She lands a little heavily for someone so physically fit, and you mentally begin ringing alarm bells, waiting for the real ones to begin.

‘You aren’t coming with me.’

‘Sure I am!’

You scowl at her. ‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ you snap, and turn away. You wheel back when you feel her smug grin. ‘Go back inside. Now. You aren’t coming with me. Do you know how dangerous it is?’

‘Yeah,’ she replies. ‘Do you?’

You scowl at her. She grins back.

‘Princess,’ you begin, gritting the word out.

‘Prince,’ she gripes back.

You sigh. ‘You’re going to get us both killed, you know that?’

‘I’ll have your back,’ she dismisses.’I saved your life today. How would you have beaten that crude ogre?’

‘You know what that was.’

‘Of course I do.’

She watches you with a grin. She’s a whole head shorter than you. You’re going to get a crick in your neck at this rate.

‘If you fall behind I’m leaving you.’

‘Likewise!’ Andshe darts off ahead of you, winding through the gardens, and presumably avoiding the guards. You hasten to catch up.

‘You’re wasting your energy,’ you tell her.

‘This is going to be the beginning of something really excellent!’ she replies.

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a crossover with Prince of Persia and then mutated into a general fantasy RPG crossover.


End file.
